1. Technical Field
This invention relates to management of electronic mail communications in a computer operating environment. More specifically, the invention relates to a method and system for reducing storage space requirements for electronic mail communications.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electronic mail, hereinafter referred to as email, is a transmission of a message over a communication network. In recent years, the use of email has grown as a form of both personal and business communication. Once an email is created and sent to a recipient, it is stored on some form of data storage media, either at the recipient location, the server location, or both. As the use of email communications increases, so does the storage space requirements to retain a copy of each email communication. In some environments, email sent by users is posted on a web site that is available for the public. An example of one such environment is the open source community. More specifically, open source development pertains to development of source code that is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge. Open source code is typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the code and share the changes within the community. Accordingly, in the open source community, as well as other public communities, there is the proliferation of email communication.
With the growth of the computing community around the world, the use of email communications is increasing with no foreseeable abatement. This increase of email communications places a burden on storage media employed to retain all of these communications. Accordingly, there is a need to reduce the burden of email communications on storage media.